


Privacy

by tiger_moran



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Crossdressing, Hand Jobs, Love, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:17:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some acts require absolute privacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Privacy

    “Is this more or less sinful than the usual?” he asks, while studying his reflection in the cheval mirror. The dressing room is lit part by gaslight, part by candles, and in combination these cast strange shadows over him.

    “More, I think,” Moriarty answers from the chaise longue where he sits, jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled up almost to the elbows. “We may play about with these more… _conventional_ roles…” He rolls the word ‘conventional’ out, showing his airy disdain for such matters, “but it is only mere play.” He sits patiently, the glass of cognac cradled in his hand, while he watches Moran from across the room. He seems – indeed, _is_ – relaxed, but the keenness of his gaze indicates that he is still alert to everything that Moran does. There is no need at all to hurry anything here and he intends to savour all of this. “I suspect many would call this a _much_ greater affront to the natural order of things than mere buggery.”

    Moran barks out a sharp laugh. “ _Good_ ,” he says, before pressing his lips together to even out the colour painted upon them, and Moriarty smiles.

    Such passion; such rebelliousness. His tiger takes such delight in subverting all the rules of good and proper behaviour, yet he is so deliciously obedient to Moriarty. The professor went for many years without keeping anyone close to him. He had no need for a full-time partner and never once thought himself missing out on anything for remaining alone, so he never deliberately sought for anyone. His regard for Moran then developed rather unexpectedly and was not entirely welcome, not at first. But now… now the professor thinks that he could not have found himself a more fitting companion had he been able to create one from scratch. His life, he thinks, would be very much poorer without his Sebastian by his side.

    Moran watches him momentarily in the mirror and in his deep-set eyes is the look of a hunter but also something of the hunted, perpetually wary. Moran is by nature suspicious and rather solitary in his habits and even his devotion to the professor cannot entirely erase this. If Moriarty had never expected to develop such feelings for another being, well then neither truly had Moran. He pauses now in applying the dark smudges around his eyes, wondering at that smile on his professor’s lips, so coy and oddly secretive, yet one that reveals far more to the colonel than Moriarty ever shows to another. 

    Getting up from his chair Moriarty sets aside his cognac glass and moves gracefully towards Moran. Moran watches him in reflection still and does not turn, does not flinch when Moriarty presses against him from behind. Wary, yes, but not mistrustful of _him_ , not for a long time now.

    “My dearest Sebastian.” Moriarty, a little taller than Moran, can rest his head upon Moran’s shoulder without difficulty so that his face is pressed close to Moran’s, and now he too regards the colonel’s form in the glass.

    There is no doubt that Moran is a man, albeit a rather lean one, whatever costume he dons – it is not merely the facial hair or his body shape but his very bearing that is all wrong - but passing Moran off in polite society as a woman, perhaps even as Moriarty’s wife, is not the aim of this particular game. Donning stockings and garters and drawers; the corset; the underskirts; the silk dress and delicate lace gloves, and painting his lips, rouging his cheekbones and smudging his eyelids with kohl, it is for their own private amusement, to bask in their depravity whilst the world beyond the walls of their respectable home goes on as normal and most other human beings get on with the dull routine of existence.

    Moriarty lets his bare arms encircle Moran’s hips, embracing him through the layers of petticoats and skirts, and he feels Moran lean into his hold without hesitation.

     “James,” Moran says, and lifts his silk-clad arm, showing that small expanse of bare wrist between sleeve and glove. He reaches his lace-gloved hand up and back, behind Moriarty’s head and twists his own head around to claim a kiss upon his painted lips. It is brief and awkward in this position but Moriarty indulges him anyway, and he allows the use of his first name in this instance to pass without comment.

   Most of the rules of their games are neither constant nor inflexible. Their behaviour; the roles they play; the acts they indulge in; their whims and desires may transform and transmute depending on many factors. Even something as apparently straightforward as the names they call each other may vary significantly from game to game, or even from minute to minute, as the rules and limitations shift and evolve. They may provoke and push each other further and further with every game, testing out the limits of what the other is willing to do, and such experiments are by no means a one-sided affair. Moran seeks to test and try the professor, even to provoke him, as much as Moriarty does to Moran. Their curiosity about each others’ needs and wants, ones both explicit and unspoken, seems never-ending, and it remains so because at the core of it all there exists not force, not fear, just absolute trust. They know that with each other they will never be harmed, never be judged and never be condemned for what they desire.

    Dressing Moran up as some painted harlot was Moriarty’s idea originally but one that Moran has now come to embrace wholeheartedly, not least because he senses the fervour of the professor’s admiration for him in these moments. When Moriarty watches him it is without heated desire, lacking the sexual yearning that Moran experiences for Moriarty, but there is an intensity to his gaze nonetheless. There is possessiveness there and pride, approval too. When he looks at him and when he holds Moran close to him, as he does now, Moran can almost hear the litany that beats in the professor’s great mind, as if in time with his heartbeat, his pulse, those thoughts of _mine, mine, mine_ , for Moriarty does indeed covet and seek to own exquisite things, Moran included.

    This is not _mere_ possession however. Countless men could be coerced, even forced, into submitting to Moriarty’s every whim but Moran’s acquiescence is given willingly, out of love and loyalty and because of the colonel’s own arcane desires. They work together, these two men alike in some ways, vastly different in many others, but who fit together as do the lock and the key, and always in times like these, when those thoughts of _mine, mine, mine_ run through the professor’s mind, so are they reflected and echoed within Moran’s brain too. He watches Moriarty in the mirror, still held securely in his arms, and knows that Moriarty equally is his. Once such notions might have unnerved both of them, but no longer.

    Turned back to face the glass again, Moran’s mirror image glances slyly up at Moriarty and he lifts an eyebrow as he enquires, “Well? Am I acceptable then?” Although confident, cocky Moran, who flirts with Moriarty as effortlessly as he has flirted with danger too many times to count (although perhaps Moriarty and danger _are_ synonymous), knows the answer to this already.

    “You have more than exceeded my expectations, my dear.” The professor shifts his hands slightly, feeling the heat of Moran’s skin through the silk, stroking his hips with his fingertips. Moran sucks in a sharp breath and shivers slightly before pressing further into the caresses. Like this, in private, he craves such physical contact, never demanding it but deeply desiring it, and Moriarty is happy to oblige him, _sometimes_.

    All this, they both think, _should_ seem ridiculous somehow. In its own way it is utterly absurd and should anyone ever witness these acts then would they truly be scandalised by it or would they merely think it rather sad - two grown men, one made up to look like a trollop and the other seemingly glorying in this? But _should_ is not actuality. Alone with each other what might elsewhere appear ridiculous here becomes somehow much more, something almost profound.

    Moriarty turns Moran to face him now, putting Moran’s back to the wall and his own thigh very nearly between Moran’s thighs, so that he can feel Moran’s growing excitement even through the skirts. Moran looks back at him, suspicious but not mistrustful. There is a certain amount of amusement in his suspicions as he perpetually tries to work out what Moriarty has in mind for them to try next. Sometimes he can puzzle it out, sometimes it comes as a surprise to him.

     The professor drops his head and kisses the exposed freckled skin over the colonel’s collarbones and up his neck, licking slowly up his bare throat, getting one fist in Moran’s hair and using his grasp on that to further tip Moran’s head back. Moran’s breaths have become shallower and his adam’s apple bobs as he swallows thickly and Moriarty feels that and the increased throb of Moran’s quickening pulse beneath his lips, beneath his tongue.

    “James,” Moran murmurs. “God, James.”

    Moriarty shifts his other hand from Moran’s hip, downwards and under his skirts. He knows what Moran wants – to be kissed fiercely; to be held down and taken, used for the professor’s own pleasure while finding his own release through being treated like the harlot he is attired as. Moriarty is not opposed to such ideas, just… not yet. There will be plenty of time later for him to strip Moran, piece by piece, to lay him bare and take him completely.

     “My dear, it took you so long to dress up so prettily for me,” he remarks, his tone low, laced with that faint edge of darkness that always excites Moran so, but also shot through with merriment. “It would be rather a shame to have you remove your clothing so soon.” He finds that spot of bare skin on Moran’s leg between stocking and garter and strokes it lightly, teasingly, and is rewarded with Moran letting out a hiss of breath.

    The colonel is flushed now, the natural tint blending with and adding to the rouge upon his cheeks. His hair, now Moriarty has relinquished his hold on that, is tousled. His breathing is not quite steady and his arousal is obviously very much more further along than Moriarty’s, whose interest at this stage is more cerebral than physical. In times like this Moran does not necessarily lose his reason entirely, but close to it. The more excited he becomes the more easily he may be moulded and manipulated in Moriarty’s hands, and that is just how both of them love it.

    “Besides, you do truly look so exquisite, my dove,” the professor tells him, and it is true – there is indeed a strange kind of beauty to Moran in this state, seeing him so vulnerable, so desperate, so _eager_. His pale eyes glitter almost feverishly under his darkened, now half-closed eyelids, and his breath comes in harsher gasps from between his reddened lips as Moriarty trails his fingers up, inside the silken drawers he has requested Moran wear. He is now fully hard inside those drawers and when Moriarty cups his warm sac and gently rolls his testicles in his palm Moran is very nearly lost.

    “No, no pet, not yet.” Moriarty withdraws his hand momentarily, wanting to delay Moran’s release for a little longer. Only when Moran’s breathing changes slightly, regaining a small measure of composure, does he resume touching him, this time wrapping his fingers around Moran’s hot length.

    Moran groans thickly and leans partway forward, so that much of his weight now rests against Moriarty’s body, wrapping his arms around his lover’s neck. He cannot keep from bucking his hips, trying to thrust into the professor’s grasp. Supporting Moran’s body with his free arm, Moriarty strokes him more firmly now under the skirts, relishing how Moran’s breath hitches again with each caress. For now he only wishes to watch Moran come undone, unencumbered by the temporary befuddling of his senses that his own orgasm may induce so that he may enjoy Moran’s acquiescence all the more.

    “James,” Moran says again, lifting his head. There is lust in his expression, and love and longing. Moriarty yields to that longing and kisses Moran on the mouth again, cutting off some of Moran’s panting gasps with his lips and tongue as he continues to roughly stroke him. He only leaves off kissing him when Moran arches against him, his head tipping backwards to knock dully against the wall as he comes with a strangled cry, pulsing into Moriarty’s hand.

     “Good boy, that’s my good boy,” Moriarty soothes, stroking him gently through his orgasm. _Mine_ , he thinks. _All mine,_ proof of his possession not merely in the paint on Moran’s face or in his costume but in his flushed skin; his temporary loss of control, and of course in his eagerness to yield to things forbidden.

    Moran’s eyes had fluttered closed when he came. Now as he opens them again the dark smudges of kohl around them makes their blueness even more striking. Although he usually manages to compose himself again fairly quickly after orgasm, briefly there is a slight loss of focus. Still too he leans against Moriarty, resting much of his weight against the professor, and Moriarty can feel Moran’s heart still racing, though it begins to slow now.

    They stand there like this for some moments, saying nothing and being perfectly comfortable with this silence. Moriarty wipes his hand on his handkerchief whilst he waits for Moran to pull himself together again.

    “Professor,” Moran says eventually, straightening himself up slightly. “I wanted… I thought…” He coughs slightly, clearing his throat and his thoughts at once. “I mean… what about you?”

    “Later.” Moriarty takes one of Moran’s gloved hands in his, the delicate lace a marked contrast to his more usual suede, and turns it over, kissing his palm. “Later, my dear Sebastian.” Holding Moran’s hand lightly still he kisses his wrist, lips brushing gently against the bare skin.

    The professor’s gentleness at times has never surprised Moran. Somehow he had always expected Moriarty to be just as capable of demonstrating tenderness as he is of dealing out pain and violence. In truth once the former would have unnerved him far more than the latter, but not now. Now both are accepted, even welcomed.

   Moriarty leads him now to the chaise and lies him back upon it, arranged there to look as demure as Moran can manage under the circumstances. Moriarty pours more cognac into his glass and holds this close to the colonel’s mouth. Moran regards him from beneath half-lowered lashes, understanding that he is not to take the glass himself but to drink whilst the professor holds it. His lipstick is already smudged and when he sips the cognac he leaves a further reddish smear on the rim of the glass, although this seems not to concern Moriarty as he now takes a sip from the same glass himself.

    Nudging Moran over he settles himself back upon the chaise longue, rearranging Moran so that he lies half across Moriarty’s body.

    “I think, Moran,” he says, slipping one arm around Moran’s shoulders, “that you were born to bend the rules.” Moran did always have a problem with discipline – at the hands of his father or his private tutor; in school; in the army. It is only towards Moriarty that he has shown such deference, for Moran may have an inclination towards submissiveness but it manifests fully only when he is treated with the proper amount of respect. Trying to force or bully him into submission only provokes his temper and stirs his waywardness.

    “And I think you were born to create your own rules, _sir_.” Moran smiles and settles his head against Moriarty’s chest. The professor is truly his master, the only man who has ever earned or deserved his unwavering admiration and loyalty. It is he who writes the rules that both of them now live by, ignoring what society says is right and proper and legal and judging for himself what should and should not be done, and Moran is perfectly content for it to be so. Thus this may appear wholly unnatural – for him to be dressed like a whore, to engage in intimate acts with this man, to be curled up against his body and held in his embrace – but to Moran, and to Moriarty too, this seems the most natural thing in the world.


End file.
